5 Big Stocks to Trade for Gains

Here's a look at how some of the biggest stocks on Wall Street are trading technically.

BALTIMORE ( Stockpickr) -- Earnings plus Thursday's regular dump of economic data are putting the onus on the fundamentals today, as investors wait to see whether companies hit their numbers -- and whether everything from this morning's jobs data to this afternoon's Fed update hits the mark. A big earnings beat from high-profile General Motors (GM) should help buoy stocks more than most this morning.

Like I said on Monday, "sell in May and go away" isn't looking like a good plan for investors this time around.

After much anxiety, investors are also starting to realize that the correction in the S&P 500 was just that: a pullback following one of the biggest rallies since 2009. With the broad market back above 1400 this week, buyers should start getting comfortable again. The S&P's high water mark this year at 1422 is still an important resistance level -- it's the nearest overhead level where sellers became handily more eager to sell and take gains than buyers were to buy. A push above 1422 indicates to traders that the pocket of excess supply of stocks at that level has been completely absorbed by buying.

Technicals are a study of the market itself. Since the market is ultimately the only mechanism that determines a stock's price, technical analysis is a valuable tool even in the roughest of trading conditions. Technical charts are used every day by proprietary trading floors, Wall Street's biggest financial firms, and individual investors to get an edge on the market. And research shows that skilled technical traders can bank gains as much as 90% of the time.

Every week, we take an in-depth look at large-cap stocks that are telling important technical stories. Here's this week's look at the technicals of five must-see stocks.